Smart Filter

Smart Filter

Define filters for searches, display and access control which are portable, shareable and interoperable.

Imagine you've built a really good "Smart Playlist" on +Apple Inc.'s iTunes and you want to share it with your friends or load it into a different application or website...

Define filters for searches, display and access control which are portable, shareable and interoperable. Welcome to world of the +Smart Filter!

A smart filter is portable (you can carry it about), shareable (you can give it to your friends) and interoperable (it works on different application and websites from different vendors). A smart filter is a set of complex nested conditions/criteria/statements. A smart filter can be static (results and cached and remain the same) or dynamic (constantly changing) or combinations of the two; explicit (drag and drop your items into a container) or algorithmic (based on a formula) or combinations of the two.

A smart filter can be used to search for things; can describe the way results should be displayed; can describe an access control list (who can see/do what); can facilitate in contract/trade negotiations (offers and requests can be matched based on their criteria – the distance between offers and requests can also be determined when there is no definite match, with hints given to both parties as to how they can "come a little closer" to complete a trade transaction).

Imagine you have been looking for something on eBay. You have selected multiple criteria to define the set of items you are looking for. You now want to look for these items on Amazon or +Google or both. Do you have to redefine the search criteria on Amazon and Google? With a smart filter you could simply drag the criteria from one vendor to another and save yourself a load of time.

Imagine you want to create a new friend feed on Facebook that doesn't show all the likes and shares that your friends make for politicians, celebrities and amazing people doing incredible things ("You really must see this!") and only shows you pictures of their cats (because that's what you really like). If Facebook implemented Smart Filter then filtering content with extremely detailed criteria would be a doddle – and you could load the same smart filter on to +Google+ and +Twitter to reduce the number of "must see" videos you have to see.

A smart filter can be used to describe usage rights for content – hence producers will be able to search for samples that match usage criteria. This aspect will be further developed within Kendra Hub and +Clipflo – two projects incubated by +Kendra Initiative and part funded by industry, public and the UK government.

Smart Filter is being incubated by Kendra Initiative. Kendra Initiative is a participant in +V2RF (the technology fund fostering interoperable protocol implementations).

Note: The use of brand names Amazon, Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google, Google+, iTunes and Twitter no way implies endorsement from these companies – but it's surely only a matter of time. ;-)﻿